Find your match with sheep

Where do sheep originate from? What types of sheep are there? What sheep are polyestrous and what ones are seasonal breeders? What is the difference between a wool sheep, meat sheep, composite sheep, pure breed, cross breed, commercial and stud sheep!. 
Learn about the history of sheep and find your match for what type of sheep will suit you and your land/environment, infrastructure, time, budget, skills and sales strategy. 

Transcript

Jill Noble:   0:02
Hi and welcome to the sheep show podcast dedicated to all things ovine. Thank you for joining May. I'm Jill Noble from Hallston Valley Farm and Sheep Stud on your host. This is your podcast to learn more know more and achieve more when it comes to shepherding. Come with me as we explore the amazing world of sheep and sheep farming together. So what is the best type of sheep for you? What is the best type of sheep for your environment? Welcome to this episode, and then we're gonna talk about different breeds of sheep. We're gonna talk about different elements and aspects of sheep we're going to explore and help you understand differences between these sheep and help you make some decisions and choices that we want to go with. With me on this podcast is Gary. My husband.  Gary's here for some special comments. So Gary, tell us about the big picture off sheep.

Gary Tie:   1:04
The scientific name off sheep is Ovis, Aires, and that's domesticated sheep. The type of sheep that you see you driving around the country. They're all the one species, no matter what breed there from, there are few other species in the genus you might have heard of the move. Moulflon. There's a American wild sheep. There's European wild sheep, and it is believed by many that the domestic sheep we have today would descendant from those European and Asiatic wild sheep. They're being domesticated through many, many cultures across the world on all continents, I think, except Antarctica. And the reason is probably because they're so darn useful meat and wool. But milk and lovely cheeses on they also have been used for fertility. There's lots of examples through Europe of where there were used to fertilize their crop lands in the times before bag fertilizer and tractors. So they're being part of our history for a long, long time, and they look like they're going to continue to be with us for a lot longer

Jill Noble:   2:14
What we know is that there are about 1000 breeds of sheep around the world on. I'm interested in just having a chat around wth you about the different types of breeds that that are in existence today. We have, for example, people talk about wool sheep or composite sheep. Potentially, we could hear about African sheep and these sorts of things. So we know that these sheep are different. So, for example, people listening in they might be thinking, Well, what what sort of sheep might be suitable for my environment, which will obviously talk about the different situations in your environment to identify. But let's just have a chat about these types off of shape. So African sheep What? What? What can you tell us about African sheep?

Gary Tie:   3:01
Well, I think the important thing to remember is that a breed, the term breed, is not strictly a scientific term. It refers to traits that are passed on genetically from parent to offspring.  We can look at all different sorts of aspects of sheep or other animals. But the important thing is what are the key traits that you were going to need on your property, your environment, your weather and your operation with your levels of skill and enthusiasm. So it's really about the traits. So when it comes to African sheep, Uh, that's pretty simple, because you think that it is dry. It's it's arid. These are the types of sheep, and some examples will be the Damaras and Dorper. Per is from a Persian  and the dor from the dorset. And so therefore there traits that they can do very, very well in the dry, arid areas that good foragers. 

Jill Noble:   4:12
Okay, so now we're talking about how they breed. So you're saying here African sheep breed differently in terms of their cycle? The reproductive cycle?

Gary Tie:   4:26
That's right. So we're generalizing here, but for most intents and purposes, you can think that African braids can, uh, full pregnant, basically any time of the year. So there are on about the factors. But basically you can ah set the time when you join your use with your ram. And that means that you can, um a ll things alot, things being okay, the the nutrition and the weather, et cetera. You can have a lot more choice about when you have lambs, and that's a critical issue. Now the British breeds be different.

Jill Noble:   5:05
Will will will get to them. So just with ease, this poly-estrous means many cycles. It refers to the reproductive cycle, So if we know that shape our five months on average, pregnant for five months. Does this mean that a poly-estrous sheep could technically have two breeding cycles in the one year?

Gary Tie:   5:32
That's right, what you'll hear from a lot of African shaped breed is it? You can have three lambings in two years.

Jill Noble:   5:42
One of the brings in. A lot of people either think about when they think about sheep is Marino's. So these are quite an interesting brave. So where to Marino's come from?

Gary Tie:   5:53
Well, Marina is a Spanish word, and the Marinos came from Spain and is one of the reasons they may have done very well here in Australia

Jill Noble:   6:01
because Marino's are an interesting breed because they're not African. They're Spanish, is you mentioned? But they actually are a breed that braids all year round as well. Yeah, so So they're on dhe. It mean if if you're interested in in a wool shape and you're and that's something that that's of a passion of yours on, we will have someone experts on upcoming additions and episodes of the podcast. We'll look at some things at the end of this podcast on why well, you'd need to have a full on grow wool. But that's something to think about looking into a Marine or Marino Cross and the Marino Marino has been used to cross with a lot of sheep, and as a result, that trait that ability to cycle all year round has been brought into additional cross spread merino sheep. So it's interesting to sort of look at that. But again, as you mentioned the pros and cons with that as well, So we've looked there in African shape and merino sheep and now like us to look at other types of breeds and in particular, another abraded like us to look at. It's the British breeds of sheep. And then we'll also look at composite breeds, too. Um so let's look at some British breeds. And I say to you, Gary, British breathe sheep. What what comes to mind? What? Some braids that come to mind?

Gary Tie:   7:28
Uh, well, the lovely British names like Suffolk and Lincoln and Shropshire and all these different names where the sheep were bred in particular regions, particularly before mass transportation, and each region just developed almost in isolation due to the different influences or factors in that region.

Jill Noble:   7:54
On DDE when we talked with the Africans being police tress, thes British breeds. Are they police tress?

Gary Tie:   8:02
Well, no, they called cyclical breeders.

Jill Noble:   8:06
What does that mean?

Gary Tie:   8:07
Well, they breed at a particular time of the year. So you've got a window where they'll come into season and that'll be receptive to the ran on. And that is probably because in the northern Hemisphere, where you have definite seasons and so you would be as a sheep, you'd be best to have your lambs at a particular time of the year and because it is quite a seasonal in that in the Northern Hemisphere. Compared to, say, a tropical zone where the seasons are pretty much the same, you do have that definite change. In day length. You have definite four seasons, so there is an imperative to do things around those seasons.

Jill Noble:   8:55
And just on that, that's what that's what signals that cycle in in these ship that would turn with these British breed shapes that shortening off the day length on DTH e light hitting the eye thehe mount of light in the eye changes on dhe. Then the sheep starts to cycle. So it's really quite amazing.

Gary Tie:   9:17
Yeah, and it can very slightly. I've heard some people say that down he will be on Southern Australia, close to the coast. There might be a little bit later. There's a bit of variation, so it could be anywhere from February through to maybe April and you get some out liars who could be be quite like. But generally you be British breeds will be having their lambs from July August, September on. It's quite light if it's in October, so very important thing to consider for your operation on and what you might want to get out of it and where you're placed with your weather conditions.

Jill Noble:   9:57
Yeah, so these British breeds cyclical breeders on DDE. What we know about them is they tend to breed longer, so those Maur some police tress sheep 10 done even Marino's tend not to breed or produce lambs for us. For as long as some of these British braids sheep in the breed we have will still produce lambs a 10 and 12 years old, which you would never have in a Marino. So there's different set of benefits off that, um, that breeding cycle as well. And then let's have a look at composite breeds. So when you think about composite breeds, what what comes to mind?

Gary Tie:   10:38
What What you've got are two different breeds and then or two or more, and you get a genetically stable shape that has derived from two of those Stephen Breeds and remembering course breed is not really a scientific term is just heritable traits that will be consistently passed on. So you've got a number of different examples.

Jill Noble:   11:02
Yeah, So, um, some of you might have heard off Theo. Australian white shape in this red and white was obviously bread on, created, if you like of these competent breeds effectively are created on Ozzy Pipes was created from a mix of White Door Per Van Rooney pulled Orson and Texel Genetics all coming together to create the Australian White. And again, you can think about the benefits off a breed like that. Andi, we'll talk a little bit about some of the the other side of it as well. The will see pole would be another one will see pole. He's primarily will shoehorn Gene, but also border Leicester parent Dale Hold Ortho and Pole Marinos. He got some of that Marino back in the air in that will t pol Pol Worth is another one, and that's a cross between Lincoln's and Marino's on then this. Several others that are composite braid. The Don's coming from Marino crosses as well. So composite breezes Gary mentioned. They are a mix of braid, generally breed true to type, and the other thing I wanted to talk about Gary is a difference from eat sheep and wool sheep.

Gary Tie:   12:08
Well, obviously, the wool sheep bread for their war producing characteristics, where some of the meat jeep they've been specifically bred for their meat characteristics where they carry the carcass, how efficiently they produce it. Flavorless tenderness, that sort of thing.

Jill Noble:   12:25
So the way I like to think of it is a difference between a milking cow and a eating cow or beef cow,

Gary Tie:   12:32
because they haven't been selected for wall and the main production is for meat. What you'll find is that they've that focus for breeders down through the ages has bean on other production characteristics such as fertility, mothering ability, milking abilities that they can produce lamps so you often get some other very beneficial traits because the focus hasn't been on war

Jill Noble:   13:00
on da a lot of this. The meat of the lamb in the supermarket. What would that be? Do you think?

Gary Tie:   13:04
Well, up until very recently was almost all wall sheep, and what you would have is a Marino typo or some other wall shape. And then I put some other big shaped like a Suffolk or a border Leicester shape, to to get some hybrid vigor, which means the offspring grow faster, bigger, mature earlier, any of those sort of production traits and then you'd get your wall off you. You. But you also get the bonus of having a lamb or two. Uh, whereas what we're seeing more now, particularly with the door. Because now that I think that the second most populous breed in Australia after Marino's probably a long way behind Marino's. But they're the second most common breed, Uh, being a mate breed, Uh, and uh, that's, um, yeah, the production character seeks reflect that.

Jill Noble:   13:56
And then the other thing that when we started ourselves, we were hearing things like, Oh, that's a commercial sheep or that's a stud sheep. Um, and these are some of the things that perhaps challenge us a little bit on bond the course. You ask questions. You find out on bond. Really? The main difference is tthe e stud. Sheep has a record of its pedigree, which means you can trace the father and the mother off a stud sheep back until the entry to what we call the flock book whenever the records started. And that's really what makes a stud sheep you can have that pair degree has been like a dog. Same sort of idea where his commercial sheep might just have excellent traits and be look as quite as good as a stud sheep. Andi. The difference is that pedigree is not there. We did mention the British braids, but of course, let's not forget this Scottish breeds of sheep. So, um, here we have breathed like this Chevy. It's What do you know about Chevy? It's Carrie. Think of the landscape in Scotland. What? What do you think Chevy? It's would be good At what? What what what characteristics would they have and trace what they have?

Gary Tie:   15:11
Yeah, well, ability to do well in the cold and wit as well. And that at here, the things that you might like is that their feet will hold up well, generally, that's what they look for. And you often find in some of those sheep like Welsh mountain sheep, that they're good mothers and you'll have less lambing problems. But what you tend to find is this. This is trade off between those sort of traits and carcass traits. So mothering and fertility tens often doesn't necessarily have to be this way. But it's often works out that way. That way that won't grow is big necessarily that one grows fast and so you often see Farm was trying to strike that balance.

Jill Noble:   15:56
How did they do that?

Gary Tie:   15:57
Well, you might do some hybridizing, so you have a ah flock of use. Sad. For example, I saw an island went to have a flock of Welsh Mountains shape that a very hardy on rough country. They do well on poor feed. They get pregnant, they have lambs, but they're not very big. The wall is not worth anything on. So what you do is have a big ram, a big commercial round like a Suffolk or something like that, and try and get a bigger land more meteor lamb. But the thing is, if you just had some flock of Suffolk's in that country. They might do so well. The struggle with the wind cold. So it's it's the balance that you want to look at.

Jill Noble:   16:42
And that's interesting, because in some countries, like in Ireland, it is all about cross breeding shape and all because of that hybrid vigor that you're talking about. So now we've just explored all the different types of sheep. Ah, the pros and cons, I suppose, of each type of breed of sheep onder this concept of sort of pedigree and commercial she pond so on. So given that you've just been exposed to all of this sheep information, I guess the question becomes, What you gonna do with it on DDE? What decisions you're going to make to find your match and particularly were thinking here off, you making decisions around what sheep to go with and why? So let's explore that when you're making a decision about what sheep to go with, what would you consider?

Gary Tie:   17:30
What infrastructure do you have? What

Jill Noble:   17:32
do you mean by infrastructure?

Gary Tie:   17:33
So what facilities to have yards. Do you have shearing? Do you have a sheep dip A. Ll the equipment that you'll need to performed the management tasks. There's gonna be required of your shape

Jill Noble:   17:48
when you think about what we started with Gary, what sort of infrastructure did we have for the 1st 2 years?

Gary Tie:   17:53
Well, we had a reasonable set of cattle yards and some smaller pins, and that was it.

Jill Noble:   18:00
It's a very low infrastructure. We are farm. That we bought was a rundown dairy farm that had been running sheep here. So there was some shearing, like a shearing shed and things like that. But apart from that, there's no handling facilities.

Gary Tie:   18:15
There was an old wooden bela. It's quite a museum piece. If anyone wants, it, wouldn't buy a lot.

Jill Noble:   18:20
Come on, get it.

Gary Tie:   18:22
We'll let you have that. But it looks quite good. Quite interesting. Can you share shape yourself and which is is quite physically demanding. And if you're not going to, can you get hold of sheer is that will come to a small area? Ah, small farm area, other many shears and how much they're going to charge you because they'll generally charge a lot more per sheep if you don't have 1000 chief for the huge numbers of shape, because it's just not worth their while. And when you bring people onto your property vets, for example, and workers shears, you wanna have reasonable facilities for them to be safe

Jill Noble:   19:04
from an occupation, health and safety point of view. So infrastructure is one thing to consider. Let's sort of again, bring it back up, Tiu. A bigger picture. Um, what what would be some objectives or goals that someone might be thinking about to help them make a decision about what breed of sheep to go with and find

Gary Tie:   19:23
their match? What do you think off when you're thinking about your life on your farm, on your property with shape? So what's it going to be yodeling through the hills, calling the mean, fading them and fading them, patting them, snuggling up out of five with lambs? Or are you in in it for a commercial money making venture is that somebody just want had lawnmowers on freezer fillers, so that's going to determine what you really need to do. The other thing, too, is you can look at your other assets, which you look over the fence to your neighbors. Have your neighbor's got sheep. If you're next to a prizewinning Marino start and you turn up with a hair sheep. They might not be too happy because they're worried about the hair on that sheep getting on the fence and contaminating their water clip.

Jill Noble:   20:16
So just it just explain a hair. Sheep would be something like the Australian white, for example. So that door per influence that African influence

Gary Tie:   20:24
that has your hair other as opposed to a wall. And also, if you've got a flock of colored sheep, there's black, and, uh, they shed their will. They get the wall on the fence, and the Marino grading next door might be too happy. Also, have you got a lot of wild dogs of dingoes in some parts of Victoria? That's a real problem, and people being driven out of shape and they have to go to cattle. Is it swampy? Land is a rocky land, that sort of thing.

Jill Noble:   20:56
So tell us about that, Then tell us about the those environmental aspect. So thinking off the type of lands I know for us, for example, we had decided on our breed of sheep before even bought that, so we sort of went a bit sort of back to front with ours, but ironically, they're a perfect match on. We did have, Ah, we had African goats on our land, which it actually became. An animal welfare issue was quite quite a challenge for for the goat and for us, too. But tell us a little bit about the those environmental and aspect, particularly that supposed the type of land and the match for the land and the sheep.

Gary Tie:   21:39
Okay, so we were talking earlier about different breeds. And if you think about where they come from, what they suited to and you warned your animals and plants to be happy living in the environment, you want them to be healthy. Now if you've got broad, open, flat planes that are prone to hot summer winds and there's not many shade trees well, an animal that comes from that top environment like an African sheep will tend to be the best. And the examples we had Boer Goats board the South African Afrikaans word for farmer Ah, and there from from Africa and a bit of sunshine there, out lying on the road, son backing and British breed of sheep heading for the shade, even if it's quite a cool day they actually go for the shade when it gets sunny. So the goats, the Borg odes from Africa did really well in the summer. But they started to get a bit cold and shivering, miserable looking in the South Gippsland wet, cold winters. So what that means is that we had to put them in sheltered areas, have shelters for them for the goats. That is an Indian. We we don't have them at the minute. Um, but the British breed of shape do really, really well down here, but we have to make sure we've got shade for them and plenty of water. So that is one aspect. And also, if you look at the past year, if you've got beautiful, lush green rye grass and clovers well, you might be out of have any any breed of sheep you like. But if you've got unimproved pastures is very rough, lots of weed and that sort of thing. Well, you might want a more hardy one of these. That's right. Some of the African braids might do really well because they contrive quite well on Ah, lot of those others. And another thing Thio, find out. Is that certain weeds. Del. The buildup Certain toxicities back there are mineral licks present. We were told that if you have a lot of ragged wart down here, if you put out bentonite lick so in your area, you'll probably find there'll be people around who know these sort of things, and you gotta find out the specifics that can help, so that can be very good in it, helping control weeds. But there might be a few things you can do

Jill Noble:   24:08
feet as well. It would be another thing to think about with the again that the land and the rocky, swampy or dry carriage and thinking about breeding or selecting a breed that would have that hardness and feet. One of things we do is get our rams in particular, genetically tested on that. For example, one of the things we really wanting to make sure is our flock have a high, cold tolerance level on you might think. Well, you know, surely they'll is just survival of the fittest, but yes, but that's not very good from an animal. Well, for a point of view, So testing our Rams, then we know for sure that our rams will have a high level of cold tolerance, so this different things you can do to help manage those things as well. So talk about infrastructure. We talked about the goals that you want to achieve. What about time, your own time and the breed that you choose? What do you think about that?

Gary Tie:   25:02
Well, how much time will you have for for chores? That was one of the interesting things we've just realized. We have to look at on the farm chores versus projects. You can only have so many hours of chores in the day, and it's not that many. If you have probably more than three or four hours off regular chores in a day, that's a that's a full capacity because projects will come up and emergencies will car trees aware of offenses Bush fires but whatever. So you have to. You can't fill up too many hours a day with chores. So if you're having to do lots of work with cheap on trimming the feet or any of those, so that management because you fundamental got the wrong breed for your environment, that's gonna make it commercially on viable for you or you just gonna not enjoy it.

Jill Noble:   25:53
Example there would be having Marino's in Gippsland. We know where wet and cold is not gonna work or and that a sheep that would be very prone to fly strike where that might be a high risk as well That's gonna eat into your time.

Gary Tie:   26:06
Oh, yeah, and you'll have to be there in a bad fly strike hot, warm, humid, wet weather. They get fly, strike on the back And so you really do need to be going around every day because it can happen very, very quickly, which is OK if you're a full time operation. But if you're not there having an animal, that's that's hardier and making maybe you have to make that trade off between other characteristics that you'd like. But But in the end, if the animals are prone to disease and illness and ill thrift, it's not gonna work out well for you.

Jill Noble:   26:40
The other thing that, um, we found quite interesting because we we talked about this with bread in the last podcast. We way we bought our land. And then, of course, you want infrastructure on. Then you do want to create or invest in a in our case, the flock. So something to think about would be What is the entry point when you're buying shape and the quest? Different breeds have different entry points. You know, you you saw RAM recently a merino ram. Isn't that what you did to go for? What was the price of that mean? Obviously, that's top of the range, but just interesting to sort of see,

Gary Tie:   27:14
uh, did to 1 38,000 And that's they go for a lot more than that. But you know, plenty of rams go for 456 $7000.10,000 dollars. Now you do want to get the best animals that you can, because good quality is really, really worth it. You'll get more killers, admit you'll get more killers of war. You get less problems if you get that. But I had a piece of advice early on where someone said, Just get a small amount of shape. The suggestion was 25 if you can keep those alive, then then you can expand. And I think it's probably a good piece of advice and were generally finding were always telling people because often people will ask how many shoot to the A key. Can you haven't, of course, depends on your past year. Depends environment to rain. Luck depends on a lot of factors, but

Jill Noble:   28:06
in Australia we call that the D S E or the drying stock equivalent.

Gary Tie:   28:11
That's right, and it's going todo vary a lot on a varies from year to year, but you better off starting off quite low and then building toe what you see your land can handle and also what you can handle. And if you're having to do a lot of extra work on the sheep to manage them, you might decide. Look, I can handle more shape, but I don't want to be doing this extra work really kind. It's no viable you. I might have to be trimming hooves if if you're on soft country on, that could be very logistically difficult or just something you don't want to do. Jill loves, but I don't. I musically like it. I like it, But then this whole things you could do with notice that when we put the gravel tracks in, then we hardly have any problems. It's also breeding. We look for black feet in sheep

Jill Noble:   29:03
pen So we talked about the facilities, the infrastructure, the goals, the climate conditions, the land. Andi, just this concept of the entry point the budget effectively. And then the other thing is, what you gonna do with these sheep s O? What about then? The decisions and new breeder would make about their route to market or their sales strategy. So what are your thoughts on on decisions and the finding the match around an individual's individual breeders sales strategy?

Gary Tie:   29:33
You know, I think a lot probably depends on your area as well, because are you in an area that has a lot of shape and therefore you have a lot of the infrastructure. You've got Sal yards with regular shapes. You've got stock agents that no sheep. You've got people that have cheap trucks that you can easily transport sheet. Ah, lot of these other little things that you might think about even produce stores that stock a lot of sheep produce were in the dairy area, and we find we're often work out something we need, and we have to go searching for it because it's just not a a sheep area. And

Jill Noble:   30:08
yet I'm working on that

Gary Tie:   30:12
on. I guess that's because a lot of people think of shape but Marino's and not sort of thinking that other breeds anything other than just sort of hobby little curiosities. There's a few of these factors that that you need to consider. So if you are, uh, have a proximity or easy access to regular sheep markets, you can sell into the yards. The problem with yards. Use that it's right out of your control. You might have heard that saying that farmers are priced takers until you put your animals into the yard and you might do really well. But there's a lot of people on Facebook that have had their easy case shaping, and they've gotten $23 for a sore one. Poor lady. And there was nothing wrong with shape. It's just for whatever reason that happened on the day. And maybe there's a bit of dodging this going on. A few people there, bit of winking and Arjun, and all of a sudden you've got $23 for you shoot

Jill Noble:   31:14
on that animal a feud. Eight minutes. It probably would have been two or $300 worth of meat.

Gary Tie:   31:19
Yeah, for sure. But that happens sometimes, especially with the unusual breeds or the rare A breeds. And for some reason, people just think they can discount it down and get away with it. If you shave aren't presented really well, if they're dirty around the backside, especially with the easy care breeds where the wall falls off, we've still had people come and say I was I think that lice or whatever, you know, it's just a shading shape. It's fine.

Jill Noble:   31:45
So I'm just gonna stop you there. So you mentioned a few things we haven't talked about, which is this concept of easy care sheep. So maybe we'll just been a minute is talking about that. Help help people understand what we mean by easier because you're right. You're talking here about the markets locally in Gippsland and definitely not a sheep market. And we don't we don't sell like the settle. But what what are easy

Gary Tie:   32:07
care? Sheep, Not all shape need to be shown eyes being a few braids that have developed the ability to shed their wool lot of the African breeds

Jill Noble:   32:20
that the hair sheep that we were talking about

Gary Tie:   32:22
they're here will fall off coming up to summer. And there are also some British breeds like will show haunt, which we have And so you don't need shearing facilities. You don't need to crouch crouch them. You don't need to muse, will them? We have another case of fly strike in the over four years that we've had them s So that's where we get the term easy care. You don't need things like a sheep dip because they just don't have a problem with lice. When we had goats, the goats had some lice, but we really never had shaped with lice on. So all that means that you need a lot less infrastructure is a lot less time managing problems. So it's a lot easier care.

Jill Noble:   33:02
One of the other aspects that I find in these with the care she is you have less chemical input as well, because with all those things, you talked about the license on d d ping that chemicals, it's it's things you put your sheep into or use on your sheep or in your shape that introduce chemicals into the food chain.

Gary Tie:   33:23
Well, the these Kim was going to kill things said that killing insects killing worms, they're killing a lot of things. So the chemicals that kill things, eh? So if you can, you can avoid putting that on your food. Now all these things will have saved two requirements with holding periods. That's the time from application of that chemical that you must not sell your shape for meat consumption's. And some of these might be 21 days, 28 days of 42 days. You have to really be very, very careful on keep good records because if a few weeks later you think I will, someone's coming to buy this, so I'm going to sell this shape. If it's within that withholding period, you are breaching the regulations, and you could be in serious trouble.

Jill Noble:   34:11
So thank you. That's really good. Just introduce people to us exactly what we mean by easy care. Um, just going back to that sales strategy. I think that's something for for breeders. When you are looking to find your match to sort of think about what? How am I going to sell my sheep or my meat? For example, on Dhe, how can I not be a price taker is, as you describe for us, we have ah, direct to consume our approach. And that means that we're not priced acres. We we have consistency in our revenue, and also we have a relationship with our customers as well. So that's that's quite important for us. To a swell.

Gary Tie:   34:50
You could do that with wool as well. If you have a specialty breed that has a specific type of wall, I have read in a book about the so a sheep. I think it's in Ireland and Britain somewhere. And the lady writing the book was talking about had this beautiful woman jumper made from the so a ship. And it was, she describes, impervious to the weather. And a lot of fishermen and sailors would wear these magnificent jumpers and keep them warm. In the North Sea, you could sell your wall to spinners or specialty handicraft people. That's

Jill Noble:   35:23
what the whole pack of people do when they they use their own, I'll pack a wall. Great. So thank you. Thank you very much for your special comments, Cary, we've explored a different type. She breeds where she'd come from. The sort of the difference between these African sheep and British sheep and composite sheep and commercial shape. Hopefully, it's a de mystified. A little bit of of this sort of fun sheep mystery for you on also helped you to make some decisions. So what are you going to do next? How you going to choose your match? Eso think about some of the things that we've explored here. Your gold, What you won't achieve with your shape, your infrastructure and facilities, your environment, the land that you're on, the conditions, the climate conditions, the entry point your budget on indeed, your sales strategy, all these things helping you make a good decision about shape. Because, of course, when you when you want to buy a ship, you want to buy sheep. Well, as I say so thank you very much, Gary. Appreciate you being on the ship show podcast again, trying to the shit show podcast with Jill Noble from Holston Valley Farm. Do you know someone who could benefit from this ship? Show podcast. Please take a moment to share this on their other episodes by your podcast, ap E mail or your social media channels. Each share helps us reach listeners. Just like you could benefit from our content. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, sheep Well,